The Commentariat Speaks (31)

Over at Doug Wilson’s place, Levi inquires, “What is your position on Satan being released at the end of this millennium? If the nations truly come to Christ, how can they be deceived when Satan is loosed?”

Doug responds, “Levi, I don’t believe that the elect will be deceived, but I do believe that there will still be non-elect individuals at that time who would be vulnerable. But then again, the revolt will be very short-lived.”

The postmillennial view of prophetic scripture has its difficulties. To me, Satan’s rebellion is one of its most substantial.

The Biblical Picture

Consider what the scripture actually says about this event:

“And when the thousand years are ended, Satan will be released from his prison and will come out to deceive the nations that are at the four corners of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them for battle; their number is like the sand of the sea. And they marched up over the broad plain of the earth and surrounded the camp of the saints and the beloved city, but fire came down from heaven and consumed them, and the devil who had deceived them was thrown into the lake of fire and sulfur where the beast and the false prophet were, and they will be tormented day and night forever and ever.”

Like Doug, I don’t believe the elect will be deceived in the end-of-the-millennium rebellion. That expression (“deceive the elect”) comes from Matthew 24, and refers to a completely different situation. The deception to which the Lord referred will occur in Israel during the great tribulation, when false Messiahs will perform signs and wonders calculated to “lead astray, if possible, even the elect”. In this much later case, Satan will again deceive the nations by some undisclosed means, but there is no hint of any deception that could mildly perplex saved men and women, let alone lead them astray.

The Four Corners of the Earth

Why would the elect be so impervious to Satan’s trademarked devices this time round? Well, for one, Christ will be personally dwelling in their midst, not in the spiritual sense that people sometimes vaguely refer to when the church gathers, but in his resurrected and glorified human body, as tangible as he would have been to Thomas if the latter had the courage to do what he proposed and, if possible, even more impressive. After all, God has highly exalted him since. Can you deceive a believer with Christ both indwelling him and standing next to him? That would be quite an accomplishment. I am pretty sure Satan, for all his unprecedented deceptive expertise, is not up to that daunting task. So, no, the elect will not be deceived. More likely they will say something along the lines of, “Oh, not HIM again.” Or at least they would if they hadn’t read Revelation, which by then they will have. After which, as I picture it, they will yawn like contented cats and wait for their inevitable and quite impressive prophesied deliverance.

The nations, on the other hand, will be “at the four corners of the earth”, far from the immediate physical presence of Messiah, unregenerate, unread (or else refusing to believe the scriptures) and sadly subject to the seductive whispers of the former ruler of this world, telling them that they too can “ascend above the heights of the clouds” and make themselves like the Most High. Short version: They can’t.

So, yes, there will be, as Doug says, “non-elect individuals at that time who would be vulnerable”. Lots and lots and lots of them. Pretty near a whole planet’s-worth of them, one might both reasonably and biblically speculate. Perhaps Doug is understating the case just the tiniest little bit.

Two Thousand Years of Labor Undone in a Moment

But this is where the postmillennialist and the dispensational premillennialist part ways. The postmillennialist has to downplay this rebellion almost to the point of caricature (“There will still be non-elect individuals”, “the revolt will be very short-lived”). Compare this light skirmish before breakfast to the rebellion in the text, which is indeed short-lived but also massive (“their number is like the sand of the sea”, “they … surrounded the camp of the saints”, which would be the entire, very much expanded, nation of Israel). A rebellion of this magnitude poses a huge — nay, insuperable — problem for the postmillennialist paying even the slightest attention to the wording of scripture.

So why does Doug need to reduce this worldwide rejection of the ruling Christ to a minor incident? Because in three little verses, it undoes every single thing the postmillennialist is working for during this present age of the church, which he believes in some sad, etiolated spiritualized sense is the thousand year reign of Christ of which scripture speaks. Basically, these three verses say, “Doug, you know that ‘discipling the nations’ business you guys have been working at for two thousand years? It’s all an exercise in futility. In the end, with a little devilish whisper in their ears, they will all revolt against the glorious rule of the Word made flesh. Your treasured institutional reform will turn out to be nothing more substantial than cosplay Christianity.”

A Consistent Prophetic Scheme

What a downer! I’d probably downplay these verses too. Unlike the overly optimistic postmillennialist with his visions of sweeping institutional reforms, the dispensational premillennialist never bought the idea that the nations en masse will ever truly come to Christ, though we are cheered by the thought that individuals from every nation on earth without distinction will surely do so.

The dispensational premillennialist — who reads Matthew 28:19 as an instruction to make disciples from every nation, calling individuals to repentance and teaching them the obedience of faith rather than trying to reform institutions — recognizes in the final rebellion of unregenerate humanity the echo of the Lord’s own words concerning the perpetual pressing difficulty of coming to faith. The way that leads to life is hard and its gate is narrow. Those who find it are few. The Father will give the kingdom to a “little flock”. For the rich, entering that kingdom is all but impossible.

That’s no cause for pride, and it’s a sad reality, but we are unwise to ignore the fact that the Lord himself plainly declared it even if we don’t like it.

Let’s be fair. Both eschatological schools dislike the idea of so many coming under judgment; we are agreed on that. But at least the dispensational premillennialist can point to a consistent pattern of teaching on the subject from one end of scripture to another. It is from this that we take our cue.